


Shelter From The Storm

by Miya_Morana



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Candles, Caught under the rain, Fluff, M/M, Power Outage, Pre-Slash, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 08:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miya_Morana/pseuds/Miya_Morana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is coming back from college for the weekend when the Jeep runs out of gas in the woods surrounding Beacon Hills. Under a torrential rain, Stiles makes his way to Derek's house, hoping to find a phone to call his dad. We wasn't expecting to end up spending the evening drinking tea with a werewolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter From The Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morganoconner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/gifts).



> This one is for my lovely Morgan, who wanted something to do with rainstorms. It's most likely not what she expected. :P I will also count it as my fill for the power outage prompt on my [teenwolf_bingo card](http://miya-morana.livejournal.com/161222.html). Big thanks to Akadougal for the beta. <3

Stiles stares at his hands on the wheel in defeat. How stupid of him, really, not to have stopped at that gas station on the highway, so sure he could make it home on what he had left. He’s not even that far, too. The Jeep reached a stop in the woods surrounding Beacon Hills, just a few miles from town, and now that the engine’s gone silent, all Stiles can hear is the pounding of the rain on the roof and the howling of the wind.

The howling. That makes Stiles come out of his despair. He’s not that far from Derek’s house, maybe ten minutes on foot. Hopefully the surly werewolf or a member of his pack will be there, and Stiles will be able to borrow a phone to call his dad, because of course he forgot his in his dorm room.

He just hopes Scott and Derek are still on speaking terms, otherwise things might get a bit tense. But when Stiles left for college a couple of months earlier, the two Alphas were being civil, so everything should be okay.

It’s not as if Stiles has much of a choice anyway, it’s either go to Derek’s or wait in the car for someone to drive by while his father worries that he’s not home yet. Stiles pulls up his hood in what will probably turn out to be a futile attempt at keeping himself dry and steps out of the Jeep, patting her gently before setting off in the direction of the Hale house.

By the time he reaches the clearing, the rain has turned into an actual storm and Stiles is soaked through the bone. The Camaro is nowhere to be seen, so it’s a relief for him to notice the flickering light coming from one of the upstairs windows. Stiles quickly makes his way to the porch and knocks on the door.

It opens a few seconds later on a suspicious-looking Derek holding a candle. The light from the flame dances on his face as he squints. Stiles watches Derek’s nostrils flare as the werewolf takes in his scent.

“Stiles?”

Stiles takes his hood down and shakes his head, sending water drops flying around him from his wet hair, just for the fun of watching Derek recoil.

“My Jeep’s out of gas and I don’t have my phone,” he says. “Do you mind if I borrow yours?” He’s still standing on the porch, waiting to be invited in, but Derek doesn’t move from the doorway as he digs into the front pocket of his ridiculously tight jeans and hand Stiles his cellphone.

“Thanks dude,” Stiles grins as he takes it, but his smile falters when he sees there’s no reception because of the storm. “Shit.”

“I don’t have a landline,” Derek tells him sulkily before Stiles can ask.

“By the looks of it, you don’t even have electricity.”

Derek glares at him. It’s not as scary as it used to be, not after years of facing kanimas and murderous alphas and ghouls and that one vampire. It’s still a little bit scary. Because Derek could still rip his throat open with his teeth, like he once threatened, a long time ago. Not that he would. At least Stiles doesn’t think he would. 

“Could you at least let me in until the rain stops, or are werewolves incapable of common courtesy?”

Derek takes a step back, finally allowing Stiles to get inside, away from the cold wind. He feels a little bit uncomfortable, dripping water all over the polished floor, and looks around to hide it. He hasn’t been in here since it was fully renovated. He’s barely been in there before that, to be honest. In the flickering light, he can see a photo of a laughing Erica piggy-riding Boyd hanging on the wall. Next to it is one of Isaac, sitting on the ground against a tree, looking straight up into the camera lens.

“Where is the pack?” Stiles asks, looking back to Derek only to notice he’s disappeared, leaving the candle on a small bookshelf by the door.

A towel lands on his head.

“They took Peter to the beach for the weekend. It’s good for him.”

Derek is leaning against a wall at the other end of the room, shrouded in darkness. Overly dramatic. It makes Stiles smile as he dries his hair as well as he can.

“Without you?”

“I had things to take care off.”

There’s not much the towel can do about his drenched clothes, so Stiles throws it back at Derek, who catches it easily.

“Don’t sit on the couch,” the werewolf says before disappearing behind a door.

There’s the sound of pans being moved around and running water. Stiles takes the candle and follows Derek into the kitchen. The plastic Ikea chairs look like they won’t suffer too much from a little bit of water, so Stiles sits down and watches Derek’s dark form put a saucepan filled with water to heat. He carefully doesn’t comment when the werewolf flinches slightly as a small flame lights under it.

His eyes drift to the candle. With his werewolf sight, Derek doesn’t actually need it. And he could have had an electric cooker instead of a gas one. It reminds Stiles of how he would force himself to walk by the hospital after his mom died, of how he even made himself wander in the hallways after a while, forcing down panic attack so that the day he’d have to go back for any reason he could face it.

He’d never thought Derek and him were so similar. Now that he thinks of it, even the simple fact of having the house renovated and moving back here must have been hard.

“Green, black or white?” Derek asks, dragging Stiles back to the present. He’s opened a cupboard, but Stiles can’t see its content from where he is.

“Black. Something spicy if you have, but anything would do.”

Derek nods without looking at Stiles and takes pulls out a red box from the cupboard. He pours the boiled water in an actual clay teapot and the tea in a metallic ball. The smell of spices slowly fills the room.

The only sound in the dark kitchen is the rain battering against the window, but the silence is surprisingly comfortable. Stiles watches Derek’s hands dry the saucepan, open and close the cupboard to put back the tea box and take out a couple of cups. Then Derek sits down in front of Stiles, and Stiles has nothing else to look at but that gorgeous face, made even sharper by the shadows cast by the candle.

The tea is good, warming Stiles up, and Stiles unzips his red hoodie, takes it off and drapes it over the back of an empty chair. The cool air against his damp skin makes the hair on his arms stand on end. Derek is looking at him, his face unreadable, and it makes Stiles starts when he suddenly gets up from his chair.

“Take the rest off too,” Derek says, moving closer.

“Um, what?” Stiles stares at the werewolf, bemused.

“Your clothes,” Derek says, rolling his eyes as if Stiles was being particularly stupid. “Take them off or you’ll catch something.” 

And he walks out the kitchen door. Stiles blinks a couple of times, trying to decide if he should indeed get undressed in the kitchen of a somewhat dangerous and stupidly attractive and kind of a douchebag werewolf. He hasn’t made up his mind yet when Derek comes back with a tracksuit, which he aptly throws right into Stiles chest.

“Well?” Derek asks, raising a sarcastic eyebrow.

Stiles takes a deep breath. It’s just like changing in the locker room back in high school, or so he tells himself in order to keep calm as he sets his empty tea cup down on the table and slowly gets up. He refuses to look at Derek, even though he thinks he can feel the werewolf’s amusement, as he quickly takes off his t-shirt, kicks off his shoes and wet socks, then gets out of his cold jeans before quickly putting on the wonderfully dry tracksuit. 

It would have probably been even better if he’s taken his underwear off too, but yeah, no.

They both sit down again in silence and drink some more tea. The whole experience feels very surreal.

“So,” Stiles says after a while, “no new monster in town, no werewolfy crisis Scott might have forgotten to mention to me or might not know about?”

“Everything’s calm, for once,” Derek replies calmly.

Stiles knocks on the wooden table, and he could swear he sees the corner of Derek’s mouth go up.

“You guys all deserve to catch a break, really.”

Derek doesn’t say anything to that, but he looks less tense, and he’s the one to break the silence again a minute or so later.

“How’s the college life going?”

So Stiles tells him. He tells him about the classes, some fascinating and others boring as hell, he tells him about the roommate from hell, who leaves dirty underwear and food plates on the floor and loses his keys all the time, he tells him about how much he misses Beacon Hills and his dad and Scott and even Derek’s grumpy, gorgeous face. When Derek raises an eyebrow at that, Stiles points a finger at him.

“Don’t even try and fish for compliments,” he says. “What about you? How has life been going, other than calm?”

“Do you really thing that living in the same house as Erica, Boyd, Isaac and Peter is calm?”

“I guess not,” Stiles laughs, and sees it again, that little smile at the corner of Derek’s mouth. “You should do that more often,” he says before he even thinks about it.

“Do what?” Derek asks with a frown.

“Smiling,” Stiles explains, looking down into his teacup as his cheeks start to flush.

“I do, actually. Smile more often than before.”

“Good,” Stiles grins without looking up.

“Yes, it is.”

They talk softly after that, about everything and anything, the packs and Stiles’s life in college and how people so easily find ways to rationalize the supernatural things around them. To be fair, Stiles does most of the talking, but Derek is surprisingly engaged in the conversation. 

Once again, Stiles is taken aback by how different Derek is from the surly, uncommunicative werewolf he met a few years ago. Derek had been in a dark place back then. He’d just lost both his last pack member and his last family member and, in hindsight, he and Scott had not been very helpful either. They hadn’t quite understood what Derek had been going through, and how out of his depth he’d been. They’d all screwed things up a lot.

The rain doesn’t let up, and when all the tea is gone and its warmth starts to fade, Stiles can feel the exhaustion of a day of driving settle in. He stifles a yawn and Derek gives him a look Stiles can’t decipher in the semi-darkness. The candle is burning low, he notices absentmindedly. 

“My dad must be worried sick,” Stiles says, glancing at his watch.

“Do you want me to run into town and let him know you’re here?” Derek asks, like someone would offer to drop you off somewhere on their way to work.

Stiles blinks at him a couple of times.

“Um, no, but thanks,” he says eventually, before yawning again.

“You can sleep in Boyd’s room if you want,” Derek offers. “He won’t mind, he barely uses it anyway.”

“That…would actually be pretty nice, thanks,” Stiles says.

He follows Derek upstairs, careful not to trip in the staircase as he climbs. His eyelids are so heavy he barely admires the sight of Derek’s jean-clad ass in front of him. It’s a nice sight though, and Stiles absentmindedly hopes it’ll follow him in his dreams.

Boyd’s room, in the flickering candlelight, is nice and tidy. It’s not very surprising. The bed is made and still faintly smells of washing powder when Stiles sits on it. Derek is looking down at Stiles from the foot of the bed, this strange look in his eyes. Stiles smiles up at him.

“Thanks dude, for everything,” he says. “I really owe you one.”

Derek nods wordlessly and hands him what’s left of the candle. Stiles sets it on the nightstand, and when he looks up again Derek is gone.

“Good night to you too, Wolfman!” Stiles calls loudly.

He’s not expecting Derek’s short laughter, or the “Good night Stiles” that comes afterwards.

“I like this new Derek,” he mumbles to himself as he slips under the cover and blows out the candle. “I like him a lot.”

It doesn’t even occur to him that Derek might hear him, he’s so tired.

 

Stiles wakes up to the smell of pancakes. He blinks in the ray of sunshine filtering through the curtains and for a moment he can’t remember where he is or how he got there. The sight of the nearly-melted candle on the nightstand brings back the memories of the previous night, of this less grumpy, more talkative Derek Stiles thinks he’d like to get to know better.

Stiles follows his nose downstairs and finds Derek in the kitchen, making breakfast. He stands in the doorway a moment, just admiring the view. He’s always found men cooking incredibly attractive. Maybe because he himself can’t make much more than a decent salad.

“There’s fresh coffee in the pot,” Derek says without turning. “Or I could make some tea again if you prefer.”

“Coffee’s fine,” Stiles says, stepping inside the kitchen an pouring himself a cup. “In fact, coffee’s perfect.”

Derek flips the pancakes in a plate and puts it down on the table. There’s maple syrup, chocolate syrup and three different kinds of jam out.

“For some reason, I was expecting breakfast at Werewolf Central to include bacon, eggs, maybe sausages…”

Derek gives him a look, half reproachful and half amused, and Stiles laughs.

“Not complaining,” he says, grabbing a couple of pancakes and the maple syrup. “So, the power’s back up?”

“Has been for a couple of hours,” Derek replies, spreading a thick layer of orange marmalade on his pancake. “I called your dad. He pretended he wasn’t worried. He should be here to pick you up in a hour or so.”

“Wow, thanks!” Stiles says through a mouthful of delicious pancake. He swallows before continuing. “Seriously dude, I owe you big.”

Derek shrugs, like it’s nothing really. And in the grand scheme of things, it’s probably not. Not compared to the amount of times they saved each other’s life when they didn’t even like each other. But at the same time, this feels more intimate. Stiles is pretty sure that if he’d showed up on Derek’s porch a couple of years ago, Derek would have left him outside. Alright, maybe not, but there would have been no tea, no nice chat by candlelight, and definitively no breakfast.

“Man, I could kiss you right now,” Stiles says twenty minutes later when Derek pulls his clothes out of the dryer.

Derek rolls his eyes, but then he gives him a look Stiles can’t quite read, but that makes his heart skip a bit. Stiles tries to ignore the way his cheeks are heating up and grabs the dry clothes from Derek’s hands. He locks himself in the bathroom to get dressed, which is silly, Derek already saw him last night and nudity means next to nothing to werewolves anyway.

His dad shows up at 11, still in uniform after his morning shift. Stiles notices as he looks around at the photos on the wall, the nice carpet on the floor and the werewolf leaning a shelf, like he’s trying to assess if this place is safe, if his son was safe spending the night here.

“Stop being an inquisitive cop, dad,” Stiles tells him. “Derek’s been a life-saver. And he’s coming over for lunch tomorrow.”

“Is he now?” Derek asks, slightly amused.

“Yes, he is,” Stiles declares. “Because that’s the least I can do.”

“Are you going to cook?” his dad asks with a suspicious look.

“Oh yes, I’m going to cook. I have a special recipe I’d like to try. It involves a cellphone, and someone delivering delicious food right to our door,” Stiles grins. “I want to thank Derek, not poison him.”

His dad laughs, then walks up to Derek and shakes his hand.

“Thanks for taking care of that one for me, Hale.”

“No trouble at all, Sheriff,” Derek replies seriously.

“Now that’s a lie, Stiles is always trouble.”

Derek smirks at that, which makes Stiles’s dad smile in turn. Time to break this party, Stiles thinks, and he drags his father out of the house.

“See you tomorrow Derek!” he calls as he opens the car door for his father to get in.

“Try to stay out of trouble,” Derek replies from the porch.

“Do you even know me?” Stiles asks, and is rewarded by a short laugh. He smiles as he climbs in the car.

“Just so you know, son,” his dad says as they drive away. “The day you two start dating, you’ll get a stern version of The Talk about the hazards of dating older men who happen to be werewolves and have a history with breaking the law.”

“I…what? Dad!” Stiles whines.

“I’m just saying!”

“I’m not dating Derek, dad!”

His father gives him a look, that look he uses when Stiles asks him how he defines “lying”.

“I’m really not!” Stiles grumbles, crossing his arms in front of him.

And damn his father and his knowing smile.


End file.
